Senator and Ambassador highlighted challenges resulting from the end of Title 42 in both Arizona and Guatemala
WASHINGTON – Arizona senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema – Chair of the Border Management Subcommittee – met with the Guatemalan Ambassador to the U.S., Alfonso Quiñónez, to discuss challenges and opportunities to collaborate on issues related to border security, trade, and migration in both Arizona and Guatemala.
“We’re working to enhance our country’s coordination and cooperation with other nations – securing our border, keeping Arizonans safe, and ensuring migrants are treated fairly and humanely,” said Sinema, Chair of the Border Management Subcommittee.
As a common transit country for migrants on their way to the U.S., Guatemala experiences the border and immigration crisis differently than many other nations. With Title 42 gone, the Administration reached a deal with Mexico to continue accepting certain non-Mexican nationals from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua – marking the first time that the Mexico Government has allowed the repatriation of non-Mexican nationals at the border under Title 8 authorities. In return, up to 100,000 migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador who have family in the United States will be eligible to live and work in America.
During the meeting, Senator Sinema and Ambassador Quiñónez discussed opportunities to collaborate on combatting transnational drug smuggling, promoting legal trade, and ensuring migrants are treated fairly and humanely.
As Chair of the Senate Border Management Subcommittee, Sinema routinely meets with Arizona, national, and international leaders to identify and deliver real, lasting solutions that address the broken border and immigration system. Prior to the end of Title 42, Sinema met with U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as well as numerous local non-profits, Border Patrol Agents, and community leaders on the front lines of the border and immigration crisis.
Last month, Sinema and Republican Senator James Lankford (Okla.) led a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border following the end of Title 42. Sinema and Lankford’s tour in Tucson and Nogales is the latest in a series of solutions-focused visits to the border. In January, Sinema led the largest bipartisan delegation in recent memory of U.S. Senators to the Southwest border in El Paso, Texas, and Yuma, Arizona, to see firsthand the ongoing humanitarian and security crisis that Arizona border communities experience every day. In April, Sinema led a bipartisan and bicameral Congressional delegation to the Southwest border near Naco to continue focusing on lasting bipartisan solutions to the border crisis.